Twenty-eight races have already been bagged by our runners since January 1st and seven more where in action although our line-up was missing Paul Duffy, Gavin Kennedy and Marcus Murphy – all taking precautions after recent minor injuries.
Those of our runners registered with parent club Sli Cualann donned the Navy and Orange with Diarmuid Kavanagh, Aran Lynham, Graham Bushe and Loraine sporting our regular colours while they await their transfer across to the mother ship in March.
The women were off first over the traditional 4 km distance with Donna Quinn and Loraine Creane. Running for Sli Cualann Donna registered another solid performance finishing 26th out of 90 runners and being the second Wicklow woman home for the team that finished 6th out of 10 club teams. The county was somewhat overmatched by the bigger neighbours on the day finishing 7th out of 7. Wicklow Intermediate champion Loraine Creane became the first to carry the yellow vest at a Leinster event and finished in the top half of the field.
| RESULT |
| 1. Kate Purcell (Raheny Shamrocks) 0:15:01 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 26. Donna Quinn 0:17:20 (2nd scorer Sli Cualann and Wicklow County team) |
| 42. Loraine Creane 0:18:13 |
Next up where the men with a large Wicklow presence – 14 Sli Cualann athletes plus Graham Bushe running as Glendalough AC and four Bray Runners for a total of 19 Wicklow athletes out of the 135 starters (by some distance the largest field of the day).
Graham Bushe was our lead runner for the full race with coach Rene in close attendance and they crossed the line within 13 seconds of each other in 94th and 97th spot with Rene serving as the fourth counter for the Sli Cualann team that finished 9th out of 12 and also the Wicklow County team (finishing 7th out of 7 counties). the over-50 men’s team came a bit closer to glory with 4th spot. Anthony Breen was the third Glendalough AC runner (also representing SC) and kept a 20 runners behind him to finish 116th.
In the Sli Cualann team, Rene was the 7th runner out of 14 and Anthony the 12th over the 6 km.
| RESULT |
| 1. Peter Arthur (Liffey Valley AC) 0:20:27 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 94. Graham Bushe 0:25:46 |
| 97. René Borg 0:25:59 (fourth scorer Sli Cualann and County Wicklow team) |
| 116. Anthony Breen 0:27:40 |
Finally, our ‘young men’ could tow the line for the longest ordeal of the championship: the 8 km men’s race which added two of the slightly faster 1 km loops to the two 3 km loops done by the ‘elderly gents’. Aran Lynham gave himself a bit of rebaptism of fire after a season away from running (focused on GAA with Laragh GFC) and a holiday away in Zimbabwe and in the end decided to treat it as a good solid training finishing 37th out of 37 in a smaller than expected field. Diarmuid Kavanagh’s partial conversion from cyclist to runner continues apace and he ran well to finish 31st in 34:04.
For County Wicklow the excitement was at the front where Parnell’s Derek Crammond led the race most of the way before eventually being edged by Mullingar’s Vinny Connolly. He had the silver well wrapped up, however, and with strong runs from many other Sli Cualann athletes (including two master’s athletes who stepped down to fill the void left by Joe O’Dowd’s illness, the Intermediate Men could add a Silver medal to their recent Gold from the Leinster Novice.
| RESULT |
| 1. Vinny Connolly (Mullingar Harriers) 0:27:11 |
| ——GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS————- |
| 31. Diarmuid Kavanagh 0:34:04 |
| 37. Aran Lynham 0:38:00 |
Glendalough AC 